


Magic Words

by epkitty



Category: Labyrinth (1986)
Genre: Bullying, M/M, Pre-Slash, Sexual Identity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-03-01
Updated: 2011-03-01
Packaged: 2017-10-16 00:37:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,710
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/166577
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/epkitty/pseuds/epkitty
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Coming of age sucks.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Magic Words

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by the Tarot Card XV, The Devil.

Toby knew all the magic words. “Please” and “Thank you” for everyday use. “Abracadabra” or “Hocus Pocus” could be the punch line of any number of jokes. And “You have no power over me,” were supposed to be some of the most powerful words yet. He’d never had a chance to use them, though.

. . .

 _“Tell me again! From the beginning, Sarah!”_

 _“All right. Come sit next to me, here. Ready? Well, when you were just a baby, I was so angry at you for existing and I was so angry at Mom and Dad for confining me, that I made a wish. I wished that the goblins would come and take you away...”_

. . .

He knew his parents regretted that he’d turned out so much like his half-sister. They said he barred his room to them just like she had. As though his room was a prison, when it was really the only freedom he had. Posters and news clippings plastered the walls. Sarah’s drawings of Bludo and of Hoggle had places of prominence above his headboard. His room was a fantasy world where he lost himself in Robin Hood, the Knights of the Round Table, and the Lord of the Rings.

Journals sat in uneven stacks beneath his bed, threatening to disappear into the depths beyond. Books and cassettes fell over one another on the shelves. Torn and faded, Lancelot still sat on his bed, one button eye tilted vaguely to the ceiling.

A secondhand guitar stood propped in the corner, sheets of hand-written music spilling out around its base.

In his closet, his costumes hung in a disorderly row: costumes for Halloween and the renaissance fair, and the little plays they did in town. And in the bottom of his closet were the magazines he'd pinched from the top shelf at the drug store.

. . .

 _“An owl of the night heralded his arrival, and the goblins crept throughout the bedroom, just out of sight at every turn. And then he stood before me in all his Power, the Goblin King. I tried to take it back, I did. But he told me, 'What's said is said.' He taunted me and tempted me all at once, trying to turn me away from you. He held a crystal in his hands..."_

. . .

"Toby! Pay attention."

The class tittered; Toby pulled abruptly back from the window.

"Toby, can you tell the class what we've been discussing?"

Toby glanced to the side, where his classmates stared at him unhelpfully. "Um."

"Would someone care to remind Toby of our topic. Yes, Anne?"

The bright-eyed girl put her hand back down and turned half-toward Toby to say, "We're reviewing the chapter on the American Revolution and…"

Toby faded out her answer and stared at his textbook, carefully moving it aside to reveal the sketches in his notepad.

"Toby?"

He slowly looked up to the frowning teacher, who nodded her head toward the door.

. . .

 _"'Will he tell me that this door leads to the castle?' I was sure I had it right, but no sooner was I through than the floor dropped out from under me, and there was nothing but a long way down, and reaching hands made of stone. They gave me a choice, up or down? They said they would help. It only seemed logical to choose down. I figured if I could go down at all, there must be something there. And then I landed at the bottom and the door clanged shut above me. It was the darkest place I'd ever been, but then a match flared to life with yellow light…"_

. . .

"It's Toby!"

"Hey, Toby-girl, watch got there?"

"He's got a stupid book."

"What's he got this time?"

"LEAVE ME ALONE!"

"O-hoo, listen to Mr. Big-Strong man… Get it!"

Toby tried to push away the hands that came at him, scratching and growling like an animal his only defense.

"So what is it?"

"Oh my god! It's fucking Peter Pan."

"Fag!"

"What's with the striped shirt, Fag? Playing where's Waldo?"

"Too bad nobody wants to find you!"

. . .

 _“And I told the Goblin King, ‘Piece of cake.’ But you should never lie to a king. Without an effort, he turned the clock forward, and I stared in horror, imagining you getting further and further away from me. 'Not fair!' I shouted, and he easily agreed, like a whispering snake. Then he took up his crystal and threw it into the darkness..."_

. . .

'Fag!'

Toby only had one person who he could count on. "What’s a fag, Sarah?"

Once she’d explained, Toby realized the bullies in the shadowed corner of the school’s back door were right. That’s exactly what he was.

In his room, he locked the door and pulled the magazines out from his closet. He didn't understand what was so bad about it. He didn't understand why they were so mean.

. . .

 _"I couldn't imagine what had become of him, so I called for the big beast over and over, when all of a sudden there was clapping and clicking from the woods, and the most remarkable creatures danced out from the golden wood. They lit a fire, a fire to match the fire of their feathers and their eyes, and a fire to match the strange cruelty of their spirits…"_

. . .

"Dad. Dad. I thought we could go see that movie tonight. Mom said we could. …I'm done with my homework."

He finally looked up from the paper. "What?"

"The movie."

"Which one was it, again?"

"The pirate one. You said it might be good..."

"Oh, I don't know, Toby. Not tonight, okay?"

. . .

 _"Imagine all of the worst smells you've ever smelled in your life, then imagine them fifty times stronger and mixed altogether. Even then, you can't contemplate the reek of the Bog of Eternal Stench. Not unless you've been there…"_

. . .

Toby sat in his room, music playing softly, guitar laying on the foot of the bed. He'd started half a dozen projects and lost interest in all of them.

He ignored the knock on his door. "Toby? Can I come in?"

Toby turned up his music.

His mother knocked again. "Oh Toby, you're father is having a tough time of it, you know.

Toby jumped to his feet and flung open the door. "Yeah, it must be tough having a midlife crisis when your son is gay." He glared at his mother as if daring her to say something.

"Oh, Toby, darling, it's hard enough to be a boy your age..."

"Stop it! Just shut up!" he screamed at her, slamming the door in her face.

. . .

 _"I never suspected for a moment that there was anything behind it, even when I knew how weak he could be, and how terrible Jareth was. I took it with thanks and bit into it with relish, and immediately knew something was wrong. 'Hoggle, what have you done…' 'Damn you, Jareth, and damn me, too,' he said, running off. I lay supine on the ground, when I thought I saw bubbles dancing toward me on the air..."_

. . .

"Thanks, Sara."

"Hey, you're paying for snacks," she said with a wink. "Besides, I want to see this movie as much as you do."

"You don't have to leave Uncle Peter at home just to take me to the movies," Toby said graciously.

"I know," Sara said, throwing an arm around his shoulders, "but I like to hang out with you, just us together."

"You're possibly the most awesome sister ever," he told her.

"You say that now. Wait till you see how much candy costs here."

. . .

 _"What happened next, Sara?"_

 _"It seemed I walked in a dream, even though I was surrounded by junk and nothing more. The bag woman led me down a hole, to my bedroom. I was home. It was all over…"_

. . .

One day turned into the next.

. . .

 _"Then giant, iron doors closed before us, trapping us in, and a great metallic beast stepped forward and spears sprung up behind, and it hefted an axe the size of a horse as its red eyes drew ever nearer…"_

. . .

And the next.

. . .

 _"More creatures than you can dream of invaded the streets, riding puffy little dragons and clad in clanking black armor, none of them half as tall as me, while Bludo called down the rocks to aid us and the enemy shot goblin cannonballs in all directions…"_

. . .

And the next.

. . .

 _"Just like every other thing in that world, it was place that couldn't be imagined until you saw it. Steps climbed the walls and fell from the ceiling, turned into arches and wrapped around one another like a maze on one dimension too many. And then he appeared..."_

. . .

Nothing ever changed.

. . .

 _"And we came home?"_

 _"We came home."_

 

Toby slammed the door to his room, flung his backpack against the wall and fell into the bed, quelling the tears by pressing the heels of his hands to his eye sockets.

Once the high emotion had settled and his breathing evened to little more than a stutter, he sat up and let his head hang in his hands. He thought about the teachers that overlooked him, the students that bullied him, the father that ignored him, the mother that pitied him. The sister that loved him.

. . .

 _“What was he like?”_

 _“The Goblin King? He stood tall and lean like a snake, and a lion’s mane of hair crowned his proud head. Silk and shadows draped him in mystery and terror, but the eyes are what catch you, the curving eyes can summon you to anything. And that’s why you always have to remember the most important magic words.”_

. . .

And then there were the words she’d told him to never use. Never.

He'd like to see any of _them_ get through the labyrinth. Ha. None of them could, not like his sister did.

Toby stood and walked to the window in a defeated daze. He pulled it open before he collapsed to the floor, hot forehead pressed to the cool white windowsill, a September breeze ruffling the sandy waves of his hair that lifted and fell without rhythm. After a long meditation, he looked up at the stars, tears drying on his cheeks.

“I wish the Goblin King would come and take me away. Right now.”

= = = = =

The End

**Author's Note:**

> Okay so I may have a confession to make; I may have borrowed the last line of this story from the last line of another story, but I COULDN’T HELP IT it was so awesome and I used it in, I think, a different way so I excuse myself. Of course, I don't actually remember what story it was, and now I can't find it to credit the author. (I suck that way.)
> 
> So, if you RECOGNIZE this, if it is YOURS or SOMEONE YOU KNOW'S please PLEASE let me know and I will, of course, give credit.


End file.
